The world stopped without you
by Swamy
Summary: Oliver sees it happening, together with the rest of the American population, watching the last live report of the Zolnerowich trial. The red of the spurts of blood so bright and vivid against the walls of the courthouse on the Ultra High Definition of his TV screen that he can almost smell rusting iron on his shirt. [Lauriver]
**Note:** Set at the end of season 4. I am not a L/O shipper and I stopped watching the show at s2 but I felt the need to write this, so I did. If you're an olicity shipper and you want to give it a try you are welcome, but please be respectful.

#

He feels like he's been saying the same words over and over for the last decade. "You have to understand," and, "We can overcome this," and, "You know I love you." But he never thinks about stopping. It's like he's a broken toy repeating the same pre-recorded lines with that mechanical inflection that sounds a bit less personal every time the words leave his mouth.

Felicity doesn't have short lines but whole speeches, mostly about how he disappointed her and betrayed her and left her behind, though all he wanted to do was stop a moment and _think._ She has her ideas about who the kind of man that loves her should be, about what a hero in a relationship should act like, and his colors got outside the borders of the figure on her black and white drawing book.

He's pleading yet again, though sometimes he can't remember why anymore, and the ring he's holding in his right hand is cutting the skin while the other one reaches out to take her shoulder, make her feel his touch, his presence in her life, how bound they are; and then he hears it, a name resonating in the background making him blink and turn towards the corner where the TV is turned on with a lowered volume.

Oliver sees it happening, together with the rest of the American population, watching the last live report of the Zolnerowich trial. The red of the spurts of blood so bright and vivid against the walls of the courthouse on the Ultra High Definition of his TV screen that he can almost smell rusting iron on his shirt.

His hand falls away from Felicity's shoulder while he takes a step ahead to look closely at what he thinks for a moment is just one of those nightmares that seem incredibly real and leave you sweaty and upset. The blonde tech is holding on to his arm, he realizes when he catches the reflection of their limbs on the screen of the TV, but he can't really feel it. There's not much he can feel right now other than the rush of blood to his head and that rising warmth in each pore he only gets when he hits a new level of panic. It's been awhile since he was this genuinely terrified and he hates the sensation.

#

He doesn't need to call Quentin to know to which hospital she has been transported. A bunch of journalists were camped outside the building trying to catch the latest news about the lawyer that had pushed away the key witness of a case against a human trafficker and put herself in danger's way, gaining a bullet in the head in the process.

He honks, muttering a _damn_ under his breath, thinking he needs to tell Laurel to never get shot again during rush hour, thinking she would probably laugh at that. On most radio channels they are commending her bravery, talking about her in past tense, and when the words are replaced by the static he turns his eyes to find his own fist against the stereo, broken skin and knuckles bloodied. Well, at least they will shut up now.

#

"I didn't expect for it to happen like this," Quentin says after ten minutes of stubborn silence while he stares at his polished black shoes, slumped over a plastic chair in the waiting room. "I thought when the moment came it would be because of this crusade of yours she chose to embark on. Not in a courthouse, with guards standing by and watching my baby-girl take the bullet aimed for a girl sold into sexual slavery," he chokes, trying not to cry. "I don't even have the consolation of taking it out on you."

Oliver turns his head to look at him. The man has his forehead sunken into his hand, his back shaking in the effort not to cry.

"She's going to make it," he says, awkwardly resting his hand in the middle of the man's back. "And she'll be cranky when she wakes up," he adds. "Remember that time she broke a leg falling off her horse? It took two days to find a wheelchair and I had to carry her around on my back all the time because she couldn't stand to be confined in bed," but he realizes he's trying to convince himself only when he hears the sound of Detective Lance's heavy breath and remembers suddenly the presence of the older man, "Yeah."

But this was Laurel. The more broken she was, the stronger the life in her got. The more people disappointed her, the harder she tried to love them. And he expects to hear her half-annoyed voice telling them to not make such a big deal over nothing, that she is strong and can take care of herself; and so, when he hears it, his name, it's such a painful relief, "Oliver," and short lived, because when his head shoots up at the sound of his name and his lips are already curved into a smile, it's only Felicity he sees rushing towards them - she must have called a cab as soon as he left - her pink heels clicking against the hospital floor, dress flowing about her, and he feels like the floor is trying to escape under his feet.

She looks over him worriedly. This is the kind of moment when stupid errors stop mattering and people realize what it's truly important, and maybe she's seeing that now—what counts, what must be protected at all costs. Oliver can read it so clearly in her pretty eyes, and he can't find an ounce of joy at that. Her hand lands on his arm. He can feel the pressing of her fingers through the fabric of his shirt and he must hold himself from shaking it off. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings – he did that enough, she made sure he always knew he did that enough – but even air is pressing on him trying to choke him to death and he can't stand the contact of his own clothes let alone her hand.

"Mr. Lance," she calls, before walking to the man slumped over the plastic chair of the hospital's hallway "How is she? Any news?"

Quentin looks up before standing in front of her, loosened tie, shirt crumpled and sweaty under the grey jacket. "She's still on the table," rubbing one hand over his face, "It's been almost forty-five minutes," he says, brain stuck on those stupid numbers. He had seen enough colleagues shot to know how it worked, to know that his baby-girl was on the limit, that the door of a normal life – if one at all – was closing on her. Past that limit, all life could be was a semi-vegetative state in which she would be fed and changed like a infant, and her fire would be kept locked in her skull until if faded away.

"She is a survivor," she says, squeezing his arm in support. Felicity is beautiful, and unbroken, and she cannot possibly understand.

"I know," Quentin nods, letting his words come out with the little breath he's left. "I'm just scared that… that I'm going to wish she hadn't survived at all." And Oliver needs to step away from them, from those words, from the possibility of a world where Laurel is not there to hold him when the world starts falling apart, of a world where she doesn't smile triumphantly whenever she proves him wrong, of a world where she doesn't tell him to not to be so hard on himself; because the one person he actually hurt and betrayed so deeply that he himself has trouble looking at himself in a mirror was the one always on his side, even when he screwed up, maybe more so when he screwed up.

#

Oliver has his back against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest, like it's the last protection he has to defend that little heart that has not been perforated in a courtroom in the morning. Every now and again Felicity's blue eyes land on him and he feels like he wants to crawl out of his skin. He can't deal with whatever she wants or expects from him right now.

He can't deal with her hands or her eyes or her words right now. He barely can take the steps of the nurses going about their work, and the whispers of people catering to their loved ones. He just wants it all to stop. Stop and wait for Laurel to have the strength to come back, because there's a voice inside – that sounds ridiculously like his own when they fell in love the first time and he had barely enough hair to shave at all – that tells him that she's going to come back and make him carry her around on his back. He wants to do that so much it hurts.

When the doctor arrives, Oliver stands straight, the way he does when facing an enemy. He walks to him while the man fixes his glasses on his nose taking a breath like he's exhausted.

"You must be Miss Lance's father. I'm Doctor Kingsley," he introduces himself. The surgical mask is lowered around his neck and there's a dark stain on his green scrub. Oliver thinks for a moment that he can smell Laurel's blood and her scent, the green raw and magnolia, initially sharp that becomes nose tickling and irreplaceable, warm and perfect like summer nights – you lose them so very easily but all you've got to do is wait, because some things are meant to come back to you.

"The bullet lodged between the inner skull and the back of the brain," the doctor explains, his fingers gripping the air like he's holding her brain in his hands, "We were able to remove the slug and there's no apparent cerebral tissue loss, so if she comes out of it chances are that she'll suffer little to no brain damage."

" _If_ she comes out of it?" Oliver asks, not bothering to be embarrassed by the shrinking quality his voice assumed on the first word. "If you knew her you would know that there is no if," he states, like if doing so he's ruling out any other outcome for good, like he's closing all the other doors for her.

The man looks at him calmly. There's a spark of something similar to understanding in his eyes and he nods to him. "She's a strong woman," he agrees, almost like he knows her. Oh, Oliver knows he literally looked inside her, but not really the way he did during the years he's known her, and he's almost tempted to explain him all the ways she is strong. Only then, he realizes the doctor is a man of his own age, clear eyes made red by tiredness framed by black lashes, a five o'clock shadow covering his strong jaw result of a prolonged shift, large shoulders under the scrub.

"Can we see her?" Quentin asks, trying to keep his emotion at bay.

"I fear I can't let you, yet."

"Why? We won't disturb her. I mean, I'm sure—" Felicity's voice seem to poke at his fears, scratching his brain as he watches the expression on the face of the young doctor change before he explains.

"There was a severe swelling caused by intracranial pressure. She's in a coma right now," he says, looking Quentin in the eyes. "We've administered an anticonvulsant therapy but there can always be complications after brain surgery. Her state is too delicate right now. We've put her in intensive care. All I can do is let you see her through a glass. I'm sorry."

Quentin nods mechanically, trying to smile in appreciation at the man's work and Oliver's feet work on their own, leading him down the corridor to find her room, to look at her through a window so thick he can't make out the sounds of the machinery that help her breathing.

He presses his forehead against the glass so hard it almost seems like he could crush his own brain against it.

When he was stuck on that island, trying to survive, trying to be strong enough to have a right to come back and make amends for all that he did wrong, her picture and her smile kept him sane. He thought she would be there when he got back – that she would _always_ be there - and so it made sense to eat raw fish and become a weapon and be covered in blood, because she was there, and she was safe and she was clean from it all.

But Laurel is never safe because people like Laurel will never stand still while something bad happens. People like Laurel don't know what else to do with their life but to put it on the line for someone else. People like Laurel die as heroes, and the fucking word is trying to choke him.

A hand gently presses at the middle of his shoulder blades. Felicity's voice sounds concerned, though she tries to soothe his fears away. "She'll make it," she says, "I'm here for you, Oliver," she adds, but the contact and her sweet smell seem like the last straw. Suddenly it's too hot, too small to stay close to her. He moves away feeling the blood drain from him, can hardly look at her as he apologizes. "I'm sorry," he rushes to say, "I can't- I need- I just need a minute," the words tumble upon themselves as he walks away at a forced pace, reaches the emergency exit and pushes the door open so hard that it slams against the wall before closing again on its own. It takes a moment for air to reach his lungs, and it takes barely another one before he's bent on the nearest flowerbed emptying his stomach so violently it leaves him shaking.

#

He knows it's stupid but he goes back to his apartment just so that he can dig out her picture from a box in the corner of a closet. That old picture kept him alive and sane for so long he thinks it can do that again, can keep him focused. If he can hold on to it, he can hold on to her life, too, and stop her from slipping away.

The picture is worn out. The colors have almost completely faded away on the lower right corner where he used to hold it between his thumb and forefinger, but her smile is still sincere and brilliant, like he never hurt her, like there was ever a moment when he had deserved her. During those years, after awhile, he had learned to keep himself from kissing her picture, scared to damage the only tangible thing of her that he had left. It was a luxury for the times when he truly felt he was about to die, because of a wound, because of loneliness. Mostly because of regret.

He never thought he would be at it again, holding onto her picture and wishing he could right all the wrongs, wishing he could tell her that he hadn't meant to he take her for granted, to leave her on the sidelines while he chased after something that seemed like a fresh breath of air but left him suffocating in recriminations and a moral bar he can never raise up to.

He sits outside her room, eyes firm on her still body, envying the man that can go inside, touch the thin skin of her wrist and feel for himself her life beating stubbornly under it. The doctor's fingers linger on her pulse point, and his eyes on her face, and Oliver knows what that must feel like. The image appears in front of his eyes while he runs in a mask and protects a city Laurel would die for; because the moment she wakes up, she'll kick his ass for not doing what she trusted him with. And so he does what he must, what she expects from him. But he always makes time for her, even if sometimes he's reduced to spending the night sleeping on a plastic chair whenever he can convince Quentin to go home and rest.

For days he watches Doctor Rupert Kingsley take care of her. Sometimes he wonders if Quentin noticed, too, that wondering look, the way he stands next to her bed, always slightly leaning into her, always reverentially brushing away her hair from her forehead whenever he needs to check her pupils. He wonders if the doctor noticed, too.

It stupidly rubs him the wrong way, all that the man can do for her that he cannot, but he feels grateful. He feels grateful and pathetic, sitting on a plastic chair outside her room, holding on to her picture for dear life while the number of messages on his phones only grows.

#

There's nothing he can do for her but wear a mask and look for justice in the dark. The man that shot her was arrested that same morning and he doesn't even have the satisfaction of beating him into a pulp.

He's out of options and he stops by the hospital chapel on the first floor, once. It is strange to ask someone else to save her because he always thought he could do that himself, because kneeling is a sign of weakness, but he can do that. He was always weak for her. He barely remembers how to cross himself but he tries, and he prays, with poor eloquence and a sense of need that muffles his ears like he's been held underwater for days. And when he leaves a diamond ring is shining under the candle's light of the tiny altar.

#

It happens on the seventh day. He steps onto the floor just to see nurses running in the direction of her room and the deafening sound of a beeping alarm. His legs are so heavy that when he arrives in front of the glass that lets him watch over her he's out of breath and shaking. Oliver presses his hands on the cold glass, trying to understand what it's happening exactly but the doctor is bent over her bed and the nurses are all about them and he can't see an inch of her for two whole minutes.

One nurse moves away with her folder and he can see her, Laurel's tired face, looking up at the doctor and doing her best to smile at him while he seem to crack a joke to lift her spirit. Or maybe just to see if she's as beautiful when she smiles as she is while she sleeps.

He forgets he's supposed to wait for permission before entering the room. He's inside before he can make up his mind, his voice calling her name with such a gentle relief that the other nurse doesn't find the heart to send him away.

"Laurel," he says, ignoring the doctor's eyes as he turns his head over his shoulder to look at him.

"Oliver," she says, looking at his tired face, her voice sounding hoarse from lack of hydration, looking him up and down. "Nice shirt."

It's not such a funny joke but all the tension flows away in a laugh that brings tears to his eyes and he must keep himself up with an hand against the wall because his knees almost give away under his weight.

She is smiling at him, and maybe she's tired and recovering from a bullet to the brain and a coma, but it's still as sincere and brilliant as it was on the picture safely tucked in his wallet.

#

He calls Quentin first, then Felicity. He only spoke to her during missions and patrols, letting the messages pile up on his voicemail, unable to say anything back for the words of comfort and hope for their relationship she offered. Because for how disconnected those thoughts were, his mind couldn't fathom what the point was in doing anything if Laurel couldn't be part of it.

"Oliver, I'm so happy you called, I want to be—"

"She woke up," he says, a smile cutting his face from ear to ear, almost painfully so. He presses one hand over his eyes, bowing his head, breathing out, "She woke up and she's fine," he says, "She's fine," he repeats, "I'm fine" he murmurs, before hanging up on her.

There's nothing else to say, nothing else that matters.

#

A lot of people visit her. Her room is full of flowers and balloons, and Oliver stops by every day, at whatever hour he can manage. Sometimes he must sneak in because it's past visiting hours and he doesn't wake her because she needs her rest, but he is content with just watching her. He almost gets found out once, because Kingsley visits her even on his rest day, so Oliver must hide in a corner and wait for him to take his leave.

And so Oliver waits. He waits because like summer nights there are things you lose so very easily, but all you've got to do is wait because some things are meant to come back to you.

#

She asks him once what she missed while she was asleep, "Nothing," he just says with a shrug, "The world stopped without you."

#


End file.
